


Protective Measures

by HyperKid



Series: Modern AU [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AND THEY WERE (all) ROOMMATES, Crack, Modern AU, Molly and Beau shenanigans, Multi, Other, Whacky wavy inflatable arm flailing tube monk, its effectiveness varies, molly uses headbutt, pool noodle horns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 09:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21444010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperKid/pseuds/HyperKid
Summary: Beau (and Molly) learn for the first time that baby tieflings get pool noodles put on their horns if they don’t behave. Exactly like baby goats. Molly intends to misbehave.Beau doesn’t have horns. But she is creative.
Relationships: Beau/Yasha/Jester/Caleb/Fjord/Molly/Caduceus, Molly & Beau, Polynein
Series: Modern AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545967
Comments: 24
Kudos: 219





	Protective Measures

**Author's Note:**

> HK: I am at: the British Museum!! My only regret is that I only have crack to post and not porn. 
> 
> WARNINGS!! None. Not even Caleb.
> 
> Disclaimer: I still own nothing but my own cracked out brain! But what else do I really need?

“Hey Jess, is this bullshit?” Beau asked casually, leaning back over the arm of the couch. Jester turned, a lollipop hanging from her mouth and hummed a question. 

Doing her best not to squeak at how cute she was, Beau blinked hard a couple of times. Remembered what she was doing. Turned her phone to show Jester a picture. The cleric leaned in, squinting at the screen, then grinned. 

“Oh, yeah, that’s totally a thing. I had to have those a couple of times.” 

Beau stifled a snicker and took her phone back, curling back down the arm into her corner of the couch. From the other side, Caleb reached out and poked her rwith a foot. 

“Is what a thing?” 

For a moment, Beau considered not telling him on principle. Or telling him to fuck off. But the mental picture was just too cute, so she shoved the phone in his direction. 

“They put pool noodles on the horns of baby tieflings if they won’t stop head butting people.” 

The tiefling in the picture was actually a human colour, tanned just a little lighter than Beau. It made the hot pink sections of pool noodle stuck to each horn stand out all the brighter. She was also pouting, looking every inch the truculent toddler. 

It was so, so easy to imagine a baby Jester making exactly the same face, in exactly the same circumstances. A broad smile stealing across his face, Caleb went to return the phone when Molly swooped in and snatched it, dropping over the back of the couch to sit in the middle. 

“The fuck you say?” 

Beau swatted mostly ineffectually at him, making a few token sounds of protest, but didn’t really try to retrieve the phone. He examined the photo for a moment and grinned. 

“That’s actually ingenious.” 

“It’s to keep the horns from stabbing into anyone or breaking,” Jester explained, nodding to showcase her own horns, “and it also means it doesn’t hurt whoever gets head butted.” 

“Sorta like a bumper car?” Beau asked with a chuckle. 

“Yeah, kinda,” Jester agreed happily, dropping the magazine she’d been reading to pull out her own phone. “I bet my mom has pictures if you’d like to see?” 

The whole room spoke up to voice an interest at that, the other members of the Mighty Nein looking up from their own occupations to join in. Jester giggled, not exactly wanting to call them out for eavesdropping, but enjoying the attention anyway and sent a text. 

“Okay! She’ll send me any pictures she has when she’s not busy. I had them on kind of a lot, I had a whole phase of ramming.” 

“And an older one of being rammed,” Molly added almost absent-mindedly, a pensive look drifting across his face. The kind that he usually got when he was planning something. 

*** 

It really shouldn’t have been a surprise when Molly skipped merrily into the house with thin bands of different coloured pool noodles making a rainbow on his horns at dinner the next day. He showcased his new accessory by lowering his head and giving Fjord an “affectionate” butt on the shoulder. 

“Hey there, big boy!” 

Rubbing at his arm, Fjord stifled a chuckle and shook his head. 

“What the fuck, Molly?” 

“Where’s your charms?” Nott asked sharply, looking up from her end of the table. They tended to eat together, when they could and Caduceus could catch them all. 

Molly blew her a kiss and spun a chair around, draping himself across it and folding his arms over the back. 

“Well secured in my room in top secret hiding places that you’ll never find.” 

Immediately Nott pushed away from the table, more on principle than anything else. Caduceus waved her back down anyway and she went without complaint. 

Beau reached over from her spot to prod at one of the noodles, snickering into her hand. 

“This is fucking ridiculous. It’s even better in person.” 

Without missing a beat, Molly turned, dropped his head, and bashed her hand. She wasn’t quite surprised enough to deck him or fall, but she did flail back and away. 

“MOLLY WHAT THE FUCK!” 

The tiefling caught a flailing arm and tugged her back up, cackling. 

“They’re for head butting, dumbass! You’re the one who told me.” 

** 

It soon became clear that that was exactly why Molly had gotten his new accessories; and more specifically, that he was mainly targeting Beauregard. 

Almost all of the Nein volunteered for a butt over dinner, and Jester spent a little while considering taking some of Molly’s left over, butchered pool noodles to try on her own horns. In the end, she decided that the aesthetic was a little too young for what she wanted at the moment. But took a couple to keep and experiment with. 

For the next day or so, Molly would occasionally come barrelling head first into a room and bounce off someone. Fjord or Yasha were always favourites, if they happened to be there. But it didn’t take long to notice a pattern. 

Occasionally, he’d dart into a room just to tackle Beau. It didn’t matter what she was doing; in the kitchen making coffee, at the table with a book, doing one of her stretches or routines in the small gym. In the shower. Nowhere was safe from tiefling attacks. 

And while sometimes, if he needed something, he’d butt his way into the room and then go about his business... yeah. It definitely seemed like half the time, his business really just was to tackle Beau. He’d run in, butt, and leave at speed and occasionally with a monk in hot pursuit. 

He never seemed to mind the ass kicking if he was caught, like Beau didn’t seem to really mind the occasional attacks. By the second day, the human was visibly more on alert, scanning rooms as she entered, glancing around whenever a door opened. 

But she never complained. Never asked him to stop. 

On one particularly memorable occasion in the gym, she managed to go from the crane pose into a toreador backflip over the top of Molly’s head as he charged, and came down to kick him in the ass. 

Of course, there were some equally spectacular failures. 

***

“SON OF A FUCKING BITCH, MOLLY!” Dripping coffee, Beau spun from the counter just in time to see a purple, cackling blur disappear around the corner. 

A particularly well timed ram had knocked her not only into dropping her fresh cup, but sending the pot of the coffee maker flying to shatter against the wall. Blue eyes narrowed and Beau scooped the shards into a large bowl while Jester giggled from the table. 

“Mend this?” Beau asked curtly, almost more a statement than a question. Jester accepted the bowl, still grinning, and began organizing the pieces. 

“Do you want some of the left over pool noodles to hit him back with? I still have most of them,” she offered cheerfully. 

Beau opened her mouth to reject out of hand, then paused. Thought. A grin began spreading across her own lips. 

“Noooo... think I’ve got a better idea,” she said slowly, like the idea was a frightened animal that she didn’t want to scare off. She’d seen more than one meme that week. Glancing around, she gave Jester a questioning nod. “You don’t need me for anything, right?” 

Looking up from the pieces of coffee pot only long enough to wave her away, Jester’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. 

“You’re going to tell me what it is, right?” 

On her way to the door Beau paused just long enough to kiss her temple. 

“Nah, it’ll be so much better when you see it.” 

A disappointed groan followed her through the door, but she ignored it. She had a mission of her own to get to. 

**

It took a trip to the hardware store and a little experimenting to be ready. Dairon had taken some persuading to both drive for the trip, and test the operational capacity, but by the end they had grudgingly admitted that it was workable. 

A truly shit and ineffective weapon, but workable for the purpose. 

“Engard, motherfucker!” 

Spinning on his seat and nearly falling, Molly’s jaw dropped when he caught sight of her. It was a good thing she’d caught him in the dining room; nowhere else had quite enough space for what she had in mind. 

Flexing her arms inside the long, flaily tubes, Beau did her very best to beckon like a character from a kung fu movie. 

“Let’s take this outside.” 

Molly took a good, long moment to take another look, soaking in the scene. 

The hardware store had not disappointed. Nor had they asked why Beau needed twelve feet of ribbed, flexible tubing just a little thicker around than her arms. Doing the actual sizing by sticking her hands into tubes had raised only one eyebrow, and that had been Dairon’s. 

Beau had the sneaking suspicion that the store clerks had seen the same memes she had. 

But here she was now, both arms a reasonable facsimile of a whacky wavy inflatable arm flailing tube man. 

A broad grin spread across Molly’s face. 

“Oh, it’s fucking on.” 

**Author's Note:**

> HK: I haaave been planning this modern AU for a while, but all the “serious” bits are on the backest burner. Couldn’t resist this though!


End file.
